Sydney FC are accustomed to adversity, but this was the handiwork of a higher power.
The Sky Blues – the most consistent club in the A-League Women and defending champions – have spent three weeks pulling themselves together after a calamitous collapse in the final days of the season last month, when two losses handed the premiership to Melbourne City.
“Everybody was just super, super disappointed and upset,” says Jordan Thompson, Sydney FC’s American defender.
The team played three matches in that final week, thanks to the postponement of an earlier clash in Canberra due to lightning. They lost the rescheduled fixture on the Wednesday 1-0, then followed up four days later with a shock 4-0 loss to Melbourne Victory. Hopes of a fourth-straight premiership, down the drain.
“We just didn’t bring our best and I think that’s what hurt the most and what we were most upset about after, obviously it sucked to lose and that score wasn’t great,” Thompson says. “But it was ultimately that we weren’t ourselves on that day, we weren’t Sydney FC.”
The club boasts a fearsome reputation in the A-League Women, of achievement but also resilience. An electrical storm isn’t the only hurdle the club has been forced to overcome this campaign.
Their star midfielder Mackenzie Hawkesby left for English club Brighton in the off-season. They lost their captain Nat Tobin to a torn anterior cruciate ligament in October. The pulled hamstring of Matildas winger Cortnee Vine kept her largely on the sidelines in the early months.
But like they have done consistently in the past, Sydney FC recovered. Between December and that final week of horrors, they lost just one match. The run largely coincided with the recovery of Vine – the team’s leader in goals and assists – and the return of Hawkesby, who had struggled for game time in England.
“I’m very, very grateful for the club, it’s been probably the most incredible four years of my life at Sydney,” Hawkesby says. “They’ve helped me become the player that I am, and the trophies we’ve won and what we’ve done at Sydney, it’s been pretty special.”
After discussions with Brighton at the end of last year, Sydney FC paid a transfer fee to bring Hawkesby, who grew up in Wollongong, back home just six months after she had left. “They’ve honestly brought my footballing career back to life this year, and I can’t thank them enough.”
The 23-year-old has developed into a Matilda in her years working under Sydney FC’s longtime coach, Ante Juric. It’s a story far from unique. Despite their lofty position, Sydney FC have the youngest average age of any side in the competition, at under 23.
Yet to Juric, the future matters less than the present. “I don’t like considering ourselves as a development club – whatever that means – because ultimately we want to win championships and do the best we can for Sydney FC and our fans,” he says. “If we can do that with 22-year-olds, then let’s do it with 22-year-olds.”
The club’s chief executive, Mark Aubrey, was brought in from outside football in October, after 20 years in the gaming, entertainment, and technology sectors. “The ability to create this circular culture where there’s strong leadership, but there is also strong renewal of the younger players then stepping up, is a really obvious thing – being new coming in – looking at how Sydney has been able to sustain the success,” Aubrey says.
Sydney have reached the grand final every season since 2018, managing to remain competitive even as players change. Critics suggest the club, with its desirable location, list of honours and large junior catchment, is simply a beneficiary of circumstance.
“I’m absolutely aware of the perception and I was made aware of the perception very early on that Sydney get a better run, but frankly it isn’t true,” Aubrey says. “There are clubs that spend higher on players than us and our [graduates from the] academy are earned because we do invest in grassroots football.”
Sydney’s season has included contributions from seven teenagers, including promising 16-year-old forward Indiana dos Santos. It means Hawkesby describes herself as one of the “older” players. “We’ve got a core of us that have been here for five or six years, and that has been what has helped Sydney FC become what they are.”
Against Central Coast on Sunday, every ounce of their experience will be tested. After the disastrous final day of the regular season, Sydney FC need to demonstrate a new level of resilience.
“The three week break has been good,” Thompson says.” “We took a couple days off after the Victory loss to give everybody some time to reset and then we came back in and you could tell in our training environment, just how hungry everybody is.”
In what he has described as his toughest season at the club, Juric believes the players will be ready. “Since I’ve came in, there’s always challenges but this year … we went through a tough time but again, we kept our cool.”
Ahead of the two-leg semi-final against the Mariners he says he wants the players to know success is not normal, and “they shouldn’t get used to it”.
“It’s harder to keep winning,” Juric says. “So we’re going to make it last as long as we can.”